Sunday, December 25, 2011

From Idea to Market: How We Built Gradient

Retracing the steps you’ve taken is a helpful way to understand how
well you’ve executed your vision – whatever that might be. What could
you have done better? What should have been avoided? Today, I’ll share
what we’ve learned (and are still learning) while crafting Gradient. It’s an experience that has changed everything for us.

Building a product, be it a native app, web app, or service, is
always a challenging task. However, once we convinced ourselves to
follow a few pieces of advice, we managed to ship something we believed
in. And this is what I’d like to talk about.

It All Starts with a Simple Idea

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always felt that great products
needed unreachably smart ideas to be built. I was exceptionally pleased
to find that this is not necessarily true.

More often than not, if you find a simple way to solve a
problem that you personally have, you’re probably going to make other
people’s life easier as well.

Turning that solution into something you end up selling or giving
away for free (that really depends on your vision, which I’ll talk about
later) is the most logical following step.
In our specific case, we were building our own website, which is rich
with linear gradients, and I found myself complaining loudly about the
tedious process of writing lines and lines of CSS code – all for the
purpose of making every browser agree on the fact that you’re actually
writing something they can understand.

Your Vision Will Lead the Way

Once you have your idea, however simple it might be, you get to decide what goals you’re setting for yourself (or your team).

Do you want to make money with your application or service?

Do you want to be glorified for your incredible prowess in
development or design, while not making a single buck in the process –
with the side-effect of becoming a respected authority?

Do you simply just want to have fun?

Do you desire a one-time release with no further hassle? Or, would you prefer to follow an iterative process

Every choice will be influenced by what you want your path to be.

The investments differ dramatically. Maybe you dream of turning this
project into the only revenue source you have and finally get rid of
client or office work. Whichever the case might be, stick to that. Every
choice will be influenced by what you want your path to be and you will
have a much easier time when facing a fork if your vision is strong
since the beginning.

Our Choice

Here’s more or less what we decided for Gradient:

Paid App: So that we can cover our investment at least in part.

Iterative Development: This will allow us to add features gradually and grant exposure for a longer time-span.

100% Custom UI: My fault!

Exposure: We want to be recognized as competent in what we do (glory!)

As with anything, there were also a few bonus goals. It would be nice
if people I learned CSS from used my app. Also, what if this app
created new possibilities with people around the world?
Once all this was set, we did everything we could to make the app a reality.

Have a Plan Before Writing a Single Line of Code

It’s quite simple, actually. If you have a good plan laid out, you
can have a measure of how much work is going to be required to develop
your project. This means that you can start marking dates on your
calendar. This also means that you can begin creating expectations for
those dates. Ultimately, this helps if you plan to create some hype
among users and the media.

These trivial tasks will undoubtedly turn into huge time sinks.

Many times, especially if you’re not used to promoting or
communicating your work, when laying down the plan, you will forget
about some apparently trivial aspects. Of course, you’re focused on
getting your “creature” just perfect for the launch or beta, and you
think the rest will be taken care of in no more than a couple of hours.
These trivial tasks will undoubtedly turn into huge time sinks.
For instance, you’re not used to marketing lingo… or you haven’t
thought of everything that might happen when your product finally
reaches your potential first users…or you forgot about a banner…or the
mail you will be sending to your beta testers. Countless little things
like this will add up quickly!

A Note on Focus

Often, when you’re excited about what you’re creating, new ideas,
beta tester suggestions, and nice-to-have features will come to you
during your sleep.

These ideas have the potential to deter you from your planned path.

It happens all the time – and certainly did to us. Take time to
consider thoroughly if these new ideas are truly worth the diversion. In
most cases, stick to the plan.

Prototype Like There’s no Tomorrow

There’s nothing quite as valuable as building something usable
quickly. Weaknesses in the UX design of your product are so much easier
to spot when you’re actually using what you’ve built. There’s not much
theory here, really. I think this is the most straightforward step.
A couple of hours after my initial complaint, we had the first rough
incarnation of the app. It had HEX input and the output was messy code,
but the idea was definitely in front of us.

We added from there, building what we decided was the very basic
array of features our first version needed to have, and then refining
the usage patterns in order to streamline the user experience as much as
we possibly could. We wanted it to be the fastest solution for that
problem. We were and are aware of free and well established competition
and our focus went on refining those features our competition couldn’t
have.

Don’t Be Afraid of Talking to Strangers

In fact, they’re your best friends. There’s no room for introversion,
if you plan on creating your own application or service. You absolutely
must get in touch with other people, such as opinion leaders and those
who you admire (or even intimidated by). But beyond these folks, also
connect with lots of geeks like you! You definitely want people to talk
about your project and the only way to let them know is to speak to them
directly.
Once you do so, expect one of the following reactions:

questions / problems / complaints

ideas / suggestions

thumbs-up / hi-fivers / hugs

nothing at all (frustrating, but common with some “celebrities”)

Seek publicly available email addresses, reach out on Twitter, use every instrument you think might be relevant to your target audience (Dribbble,
Facebook, you name it), listen to what the others are saying, and
engage people in relevant conversations. It’s time consuming but it will
make a huge difference.

If executed correct, the pieces quickly fall into place.

For us, this engagement pattern led us from less than 300 followers
on Twitter at the beginning of September, when we began our closed beta,
to 1000 and counting on launch day in November and a growth in actual
amplification that went from no more than 5 retweets on the first beta
announcement, to more than 70 retweets and many other support messages
from the entire community in November – including many of our heroes.
Visits to the website and registration increased exponentially.
Additionally, this led to new interesting business opportunities,
connections we could only dream of just a couple of months ago, a lot
more visibility and also some new good friends. If executed correct, the
pieces quickly fall into place.

There’s a Price

It’s tricky, though – especially for people like us who prefer
creating things over pricing them. Again, your vision will help you with
this, providing you with at least a range of options.
Studying your market of choice, especially in contexts like the App
Store, where the data is mostly kept secret, is difficult and takes
time, but, again, rational thought comes in handy. Here are the
questions we answered when coming to our decision:

What’s the price of similar products? (on the App Store in this case)

Do we want it to be an impulse or a well-pondered purchase?

Based on the development effort, how much money do we expect to make? Can we estimate how many units we could sell?

How much would we be willing to pay for it?

What benefit will people have from our app? Is it countable? In this
specific case, how much would they be willing to pay for the relevant
amount of time saved?

As a reasonable indicator of how things are going, we’re right now
evaluating user feedback. Unless what you build is free, there will
always be someone screaming at you because your product costs money.
However, if some of these buyers reply to you, explaining why the price
is reasonable in their eyes, you’ve likely hit a sweet spot. (And you
have awesome users.)

Hit the Shelves or the Screens

Building your own product is both a challenge and the most rewarding adventure in our industry.

It’s a wonderful experience; building your own product is both a
challenge and the most rewarding adventure in our industry. Ironically,
the things you learn in the process serve to be the best prize at the
end of your path. The connections you build along the way are extremely
valuable. You gain respect, because you demonstrate you’re able to ship.
You transition from an idea, to execution.
Once your product reaches the public, a new journey begins, and many
new interaction possibilities open up. Still, though, the same rules
that you’ve followed still apply. Don’t stray from the path.